Mate in 3: pawn to e4
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The tactical motive
Chess960 twist: use the unusual starting setup of the pieces.
Mate in 3: a forced sequence that ends in checkmate.
Difficulty 1630 ShuffleRating — for advanced tacticians.
White to move — find the best continuation
How to recognize this tactic
In Chess960 the pieces start on unfamiliar squares, so tactics appear earlier and from unusual angles. Do not trust classical patterns — read the actual lines of the bishops, the rooks and the queen from where they really stand in this position.
In a mate in three every move must be forcing; the defender should never get a free tempo. Find the check or threat that herds the king, calculate the single defence to each, and confirm the net closes on the third move.
General method: before you move, list the forcing candidates — every check, every capture, every direct threat — and calculate those first. The solution to a tactic is almost always among them.
Position on the board
White: king d3, queen a2, pawn e2 f3 g3.
Black: king f5, queen c5, rook h8, pawn h5 d6 f6 g6 e7.
5 white and 8 black pieces are on the board; the puzzle position arises after move 30.
The position in numbers
Black are ahead by 7 points of material (12 against 19; pawn = 1, knight and bishop = 3, rook = 5, queen = 9) — the tactic has to convert or outweigh that.
The white king stands on d3, the black king on f5.
It is White to move on move 30, with 22 legal replies to weigh — only the line that keeps the advantage solves the puzzle.
White keeps 3 pawns, Black 5. Files fully open (no pawns of either colour): a, b, c — natural highways for the rooks and queen. Half-open for White: d, h.
The White king has 1 empty squares to step to right now — the fewer they are, the closer a mating net.
Solution & explanation
Main line
30. e4+ Kg5 31. Qd2+ Qe3+ 32. Qxe3#
Why it works
- Great move! pawn to e4 keeps the pressure (#2).
- Well found: queen to d2 (#1).
- Strong! queen to e3 is the sharp choice (#).
- The line ends in a forced mate in 3.
- If instead Kg5, then Qd2+ and you stay on top.
Move by move
- 30. e4+ — pawn to e4 with check
- Kg5 — king to g5
- 31. Qd2+ — queen to d2 with check
- Qe3+ — queen to e3 with check
- 32. Qxe3# — queen to e3 (capture) and it is checkmate
Types in this puzzle
Mate in 3
A forced checkmate in three moves.
Mate in three is a forced staircase: each of your moves narrows the opponent's choices, and the third one ends the game. Look for the start among checks and sacrifices — quiet first moves are rare in mating problems, but deliciously sneaky. Keep the tree in your head: every defense gets its own branch. Do not stop calculating after move two — see the final mating picture with your own eyes.
Only move
Everything else loses — find the only move that holds.
An only move is a position where everything loses except one single continuation. You cannot play "by hand" here: run through fundamentally different defenses — run away, block, trade, counterattack — and discard the ones that fail. The hallmark of these puzzles is that the obvious moves lose quickly while the solution often looks strange. First understand exactly what the threat is — then the one saving move reveals itself.
Win the pinned piece
The pinned piece cannot run — attack it again and win it.
A pinned piece cannot flee, which means you can win it outright by attacking it one more time. Count attackers against defenders: if you outnumber them, the piece is yours. The best extra attacker is a pawn, since it costs less than anything it might capture. Do not rush the capture — build up the pressure first, then harvest.
About this position
These pieces come from starting position #237.
SP-237 · ThroneScout — Centre-file king, rim knight: 204 of the 960 positions share this pattern.
The king starts on e1, the rooks on b1 and h1, the queen on c1.
Castling ends where it always does: king to g1 and rook to f1 on the short side, king to c1 and rook to d1 on the long one.
The bishops stand on d1 and g1; their long diagonals reach h5 and a7 once the e- and f-pawns step aside.
The second rank carries 2 pawns with no defender at all: a2, g2.
The setup belongs to the ThroneScout family; read right to left it becomes position 632.
The engine's main line opens with f4.
Morozov Balance Index: 16 of 100 — class D — largest edge. Engine evaluation of the starting position: +39 centipawns for White (depth 45, 400 000 000 nodes).
Explore position #237Provenance
Mined from the project's engine self-play games.
Pack 012 · SP-237
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